What happens when your local utility company is up to its ears in customer calls? You could end up fighting a hefty water bill for months on end, like one Pittsburgh family that had to battle a $12,241.60 total on their account for nine months. [More]

There are vacant lots all over the place here in Philadelphia, and a number of them are sold at auction by the city’s Housing Authority. When one area man purchased one such empty spot of land two years ago, the last thing he probably expected was to someday be hit with an unexplained and massive water bill for a property with nothing built on it. [More]

A New Jersey man says that when the water bill on his rental property jump from an average of $200 to $800 in a single billing cycle, the city said nothing was wrong, leaving him to chalk it up to a careless tenant who must love long showers. But no non-whale tenant in the world could explain how his next bill soared up to $76,000. [More]

As the local news points out in one Ohio town, “there was not a vast increase in baptisms, nor an excessive increase in the amount of tea consumed in the rectory.” And yet, a church in that town received a bill for $93,000 worth of water — in just one month. From the sound of it, the congregation is taking it all in stride and even having some fun with it. [More]

An 80-year-old California man concedes that it’s entirely possible that he has used 440,000 gallons of water in one month, and that he and his wife really do owe the city $11,000. It’s possible if the city has been pumping dehydrated water into his house. [More]

A California woman who had never paid more than $60 for her monthly water service was recently hit with a staggering $2,659 water bill, but the utility provider insists nothing is wrong with her meter. [More]

While we might never know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop (wait, did someone figure that out?) we can reasonably guess how much water a single woman uses in a month. And just to start things off, if the EPA says the average family of four uses around 12,000 gallons per month, what is the likelihood that an 84-year-old woman used 55,000 just by herself in that same time span? Highly unlikely, city of Sacramento! We call shenanigans. [More]

A few years back, after the death of her parents, Consumerist reader Jen took over the running of the house in which she’d grown up. Since then, she’s been paying the bills without problem. But now the water company wants her to pay $30 simply to change the name on the account. [More]

When your quarterly water bill goes up a few thousand percent after the city installs a new meter at your house, you’d think the utilities folks would want to take a look at that meter because it’s either broken or your house is about to float away. But not in New York City, where it will cost you $180 just for the privilege of having that meter inspected by a human being. [More]

Each time you fill up a glass of water or brush your teeth, maybe you’re trying to conserve water for nature’s sake, but you’re probably not overly worried about jacking up your water bill. That could change, as the price of overhauling our country’s drinking water system is likely to be a steep one, warns a new study — and that expense could be reflected in the water bills of many consumers. [More]

Reader Jim just got a water bill that says his usage has jumped up to 19,000 23,000 gallons per month from his usual 4,000. This is a guy who lives in a one-bath, one-toilet, one-sink house. “Must be that swimming pool I filled in the middle of winter in Western PA,” he says. So far, the utility has dismissed all his requests for explanation, or logic, and demanded he pay up immediately. [More]

Erica Kocur in Minneapolis received her water bill from the city, and it’s for $1,600, about 20 times what she normally pays. The city says it’s accurate, but KSTP-TV says that she would have had to use almost 200,000 gallons of water in one month to generate that figure. [More]